Developing the Roles and Responsibilities of The Qualified Nurse Teaching and Facilitating Others
As a registered nurse or indeed as a student nurse undertaking training,
teaching others may it be peers, clients or their families is an important
factor that is practised in a variety of contexts, day to day.
As The Code of Professional Conduct (2002) states the nurse is personally
accountable for their practice and must maintain and improve professional
knowledge and competence. It also states that the role of the nurse is
certainly to work in an open and co-operative manner with patients, clients
and their families, foster their independence and recognise and respect
their involvement in the planning and delivery of care.
Indeed if patients are to be involved in the planning of this care, their
understanding and learning of their illness/reason for their stay in hospital
is of paramount importance. When teaching others nurses must be active
rather than passive, practice in a variety of contexts, using measurable
objectives and understand the importance of motivation.
It is therefore important to understand as a nurse, that different people
may learn in many different ways, and that differing approaches may have to
be taken into consideration. There are various learning theories and
approaches to maximise understanding.
Knowles (1984) theory of andragogy is an attempt to develop a theory
specifically for adult learning. Andragogy makes assumptions about the
design of learning. Adults need to know why they need to learn something,
adults need to learn experientially. Adults approach learning as problem
solving and finally adults learn best when the topic is of immediate value.
Knowles theory identifies that strategies such as case studies, role-playing,
simulation and self -evaluation are most useful.
There are four principles of andragogy as identified by Knowles. The first
identifies that adults need to...